Fairytales
by archiveidiotjello
Summary: Part two of two. "His hands slips away from hers as he pulls away, again, and she might just think she's gotten used to the sensation. She has to resist rolling her eyes, wary of ruining the drama of it all, but honestly. Men were such idiots."
1. Part One

**_A/N: _**I always thought Anastasia was a movie about self-discovery. Anya finds out who she is, Vlad finds out he adores puppies, and Dimitri finds out he isn't a conman. Because we all know there was definitely a turning point in his character where the journey to Paris stops being a con and starts being a quest to reunite Anya with her family. Most people, I think, would say that point happened at Sophie's mansion, but I'm not so sure...

Will be in two parts.

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_Sometimes I'm bold and brash, and sometimes I'm prone to crash_

_And sometimes I say too much, and sometimes it's not enough_

_But I'll never hold you back from something you want so bad_

_Just tell me so I'm not sad_

0000

He's developing a unwelcome habit of staring at her when she isn't looking. Or at least he hopes she isn't looking. Perhaps it didn't matter; she already thought him a insincere and a not a little bit irritating, so they might as well add 'possible pervert/stalker' to the mix. The thing is, he can't help it.

She's gorgeous. She really is. Almond-shaped eyes with irises blue as a Romanov, so big they almost overpower the rest of her features. Her nose is upturned and her lips, though they are chapped and torn, are a soft raspberry color. It terrifies him when he realizes he does enjoy just looking at her. It's like the stuff of books and movies, and it positively sickens him to think of himself as one of _those _types of men. Fluffy little butterflies that couldn't talk their way out of an open field and had nothing better to do than write poetry about the exact shade of their lover's eyes.

Anya's eyes are blue. Just blue. A pretty blue, granted, but nothing to wax poetically about.

Those very same eyes are suddenly upon his, but he doesn't look away. That would just give him away. Being a conman, he's gotten good at hiding emotions.

"Okay, I give up. _Why _are you staring at me? Do I have something on my face?"

Ah. Well. Maybe he isn't as adept at sneaking glances as he thought.

"Yeah," he says, his voice harsh, tone crass, just the way he liked it. "About ten years worth of Russian grime and dirt. When was the last time you washed your face?"

She is the one staring now, speechless and not a little outraged. She struggles for the words, opening and closing her mouth several times. Ultimately, she is too angry for words.

"We'll fix that when we reach Paris," he says, reassuring her in the most patronizing tone he can manage. Her eyes only flick to him for a second, but that is well enough time to shoot him a glare icier than the scenery outside the train window. He smirks, but doesn't feel it.

Damn. He really is good at what he does, if he isn't even sincere or genuine when making an ass of himself.

Being a conman, he's gotten good at making himself unlikeable.

0000

He lets her cry into his already soaked shirt for a minute or two before he brings her back down below, wary of her catching a cold. She quietly changes back into her dress from before, more afraid of becoming ill than the unattractive wrinkles that might form while she slept. He replaces his shirt with a dryer one, but finds himself without a change of trousers. It doesn't matter. Soon he will have ten million rubes, and will be able to afford every tuxedo in Paris.

Being so close to the reward now, it makes the back of his neck tingle and itch just from the anticipation of it. He glances over to his charge, his very ticket out of St. Petersburg, the very key to the money that would let him live comfortably for a few years. Not having to worry about food, or clothes, or business, or ever companionship. Any desperate woman off the street would gladly be with him when tempted with a few rubes, or even just the promise of a new dress every week. The good life, the guys back at St. Petersburg, would say.

And yet...there she sits, Indian-style on the floor of the cabin, leaning against the side of her bunk. She's pensive, a look he hasn't seen her wear before. He feels like he should say something, but wouldn't now where to start.

Being a conman, he's gotten good at avoiding confrontation.

She stares, unseeing, into the air, looking more lost than he's ever seen her.

Perhaps...Perhaps when the Dowager eventually but inevitably throws her out, perhaps he'll be around. Perhaps he could convince her to like him, even a little. Perhaps he could promise to take care of her, if she'd marry him. Perhaps she'd be too sad to come to her senses and realize he's conning her into a life she wouldn't, doesn't, will never want. Or perhaps he'll do real well, and trick her into thinking that she doesn't hate him, trick her into love before she can realize that he's the most insufferable person on the planet.

She catches him watching her again, and he catches sight of the way she's still trembling, still shaking from the storm.

He's an idiot.

Sliding down into the spot next to her, he bumps her shoulder casually, smiling slightly. "If I hadn't sold my coat two stops back, I would've given it to you. Just to let you know." He's pulling the joking comradeship on her, hoping she'll buy it.

She sees right through him, of course, and doesn't say anything. She's got no reason to.

Again with the awkward silence, just begging to be filled.

"Anya, I..." he starts, before thinking of the ending. He trails off, and the words sound too much like the ones he uttered earlier today after they had danced. He winces just thinking about it. That...that had been bad. He didn't know what he was thinking, leaning in like that. Well, he knew _exactly _what he'd been thinking, but didn't know why he thought that it would be a good idea to just lean in like...like...someone he wasn't. Someone he would never be.

"Yes, Dimitri?"

He hadn't expected her to reply. He looks to her, finding her staring right back at him. Being a conman, he's gotten good at having a way with words. Being with her, he's gotten good at putting his foot in his mouth and stuttering like an idiot.

"I...," he says again, not sure where this is going. Until he does. Until he's too scared for it to go any other way. He turns on her, blames her. "What were you _thinking? _Standing up there like a damn suicide victim? _You could've died_, and then where would we be?"

She looks back down to her feet, her shoulders slumping in such a way he could've thought her disappointed if he didn't know better.

"I was dreaming," she says, only half of an explanation. "I was standing on the edge of a cliff...and my family was on the other side." Her brow furrows, her expression growing troubled. "I...I wanted to fall. Fall like the rest of them. Just one more step, just inches, and then I'd be with them. Forever."

He's watching her, the way her brow crinkles and her bottom lip juts out slightly when she's confused. She turns her head to look at him, and her blue, blue eyes are now staring right back at his, slightly puffy and pink from crying. She looks resigned, and it's her quiet acceptance of this despair that tips him over the edge.

He encircles her in his arms, whispers in her ear, "It's just a dream, Anya. It's not real. We'll find your family, I promise." He think he feels her bury her face into his collarbone, her nose touching the base of his neck. He pulls her closer, gives her shoulders a gentle squeeze. "Even if it takes us ten million miles, we'll find them." He lips brush the tiniest wisp of her hair as he speaks, and he can't resist pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

They sit in that way for a while, and it's possibly the first person he's hugged in months. Years?

Too soon, she raises her head, but doesn't look at him, pulls away. He is hesitant to let her go, but does, and she retreats back into the spot she had been in before. The inches between them suddenly feel like miles, and he's got that particular nag at the back of his mind that tells him that he's done something wrong.

"Dimitri, I..." She echoes his words from before, and her voice sounds so very strange. It has been all night, ever since they started dancing. All high-pitched and confused and very, very un-Anya like. She's still not looking at him. "I want to thank you...for everything. For picking me up, and letting me do this. For saving me when I got sad." Her voice is warmer now, friendly and genuine and it is strange, but she sounds more like Anya than she has in hours. She turns those eyes upon him, and she's smiling. "It's best thing that's ever happened to me."

He looks at her, a sort of happiness bubbling within him. It's different but feels so good, so right, and he wants the moment to last forever. At some point he must've started smiling, because he can literally feel his expression fall when he remembers. Remembers it all, rushing past his eyes faster than the speed of sound.

He won't let it happen. Not now. But he won't change the subject, and he won't lie, and he won't intentionally be an asshole to her.

"Me too," he says, the words coming easier than all of the lies, "I..I'm so glad I met you." He smiles, crookedly, back at her, the best smile he can manage. For her, it's all for her.

He doesn't know when it started being about her, Anya the Orphan, not Anastasia, or ten million rubes. But now it's all about her, just her, and he can't remember ever feeling this hopeful.

0000

When she says she remembers him, he feels like the air was been knocked out of his lungs. Anastasia, his Anastasia, is here, only five feet away from where he is standing. For a wonderful moment is overjoyed, the Last Romanov is alive, but then he remembers. Remembers who he is. Who she is. Who they are, and who they aren't. That's when he starts feeling like he's ten years old again, infatuated with merely a dream, the forever unattainable Duchess Anastasia.

How typical of him.

Anya turns her head, flashing him an excited smile from Sophie's couch, and he hears his master again, the cook's words still ringing in his ears. Princesses don't play with kitchen boys, much less marry them.

He finds it too easy to smile back at her, his false happiness shining though and true. Being a conman, he's gotten good at lying.

0000

It's weird to say he's disappointed, but that's how he feels. Anya, however, is overjoyed: she found her home and her family and everything she'd been looking for. And he should be happy for her, but he isn't. He just can't be. His stupid half-baked plan to sweep her off her feet again when the Dowager dropped her is now useless, and if there was ever a reason they couldn't be together, there's certainly one now.

Princesses don't marry kitchen boys. They just don't.

And now he's disappointed. So he strides into the Dowager's sitting room with the determination of a bitter man seeking his revenge. Being nice, being honest, being that fairytale man Anya had always hoped for had only left him heartbroken. So he won't do that anymore. He's a conman, he was always a con man, and it was time he got over himself and claimed his reward. If he couldn't have Anya, then he could have ten million rubes. Easy.

Being a conman, he's gotten good at pretending to be someone else entirely just long enough before it all comes crashing down around him.

But he doesn't. He doesn't take it. He can't quite explain why, but he knows it's because of Anya.

Perhaps that's all he needs to know. Perhaps he is That Guy, and perhaps Anya is That Girl. Perhaps he's not a conman, not anymore. Perhaps he's better than that now.

Perhaps he's not.

Being a conman, he's gotten good at lying to himself.

He buys a ticket to St. Petersburg with all of the money he has left, and is not sure of anything, except that he doesn't belong in Paris.


	2. Part Two

**_A/N: _**And here comes the end of my alternate ending to Anastasia. Lyrics are from SafetySuit's Something I Said. Also inspired by Fall Out Boy's Thnks Fr Th Mmrs and Katy Perry's Thinking of You. I don't know why, but all three of these songs seems ridiculous Anya/Dimitri to me...

Here goes-

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_So let me ask you I just have to now that you're not mine_

_Do you feel free, have what you need or do you still feel scared inside_

_Cause I am on the line and don't know what to do_

0000

Anya loves her grandmother, she really does. In fact, she loves her more than anything walking on this earth, but her smug all-knowing smiles are starting to drive Anya _insane_. Anytime the conversation would die down, or she'd be telling a story featuring her travels to Paris, anytime she got lost in the nostalgia of it all, her grandmother would suddenly shoot her that look she's grown to despise. It's slightly patronizing, that loving but slightly condescending quirk of her mouth, that "oh, look how silly and blind you are, young one, you will soon come to your senses" tone of voice that never fails to set Anya on edge.

She thinks she's very well come to her senses by now. She's got her family back, her home back, and isn't still stuck in Russia, chasing merely a dream. Her life seems all very well sorted out, Anya thinks.

So what was her Grandmama _on_ about?

She can't handle it anymore by the fifth day in Paris, and explodes in a flurry of exasperation and frustration, flinging her hands into the air in the middle of a quiet evening in the drawing room. "_What are you smiling about_?" Her grandmother blinks in obligatory confusion. "You've been smiling like that at me all week. All-knowing and smug and condescending, like you know something I don't. So what is it?"

She stares at her grandmother, who is _still smiling, _and she can only remember only too clearly the last time she was this irritated with someone.

"You look lost, Anastasia," the Dowager says at length.

"What are you talking about?"

"Lost, like you're still missing something. Tell me, my dear, do you feel at home here?"

Anya blinks rapidly, dreading where this conversation is going. "Of course of I am. I mean, how could I not? I found you, my family? Isn't that home enough?"

"Is it?"

She doesn't know how to respond to that.

"My dear, you flinch whenever I mention your name, Anastasia. Like you don't recognize it, like it it doesn't belong to you, like you have to remind yourself that is who you are. I don't think a girl ought to be afraid of her own name, do you?" To her disgust, she feels tears welling up in the corners of her eyes. However, they did not slide down her cheeks, by her own doing. Being an orphan, she had gotten good at not crying.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You're not happy here, Anya."

She looks up, startled that her grandmother is using _that _name. She hadn't known that Grandmama even _knew_ about that name. "I love Paris," she says fiercely, tired of all this insinuating and tip-toeing around the real issue. "I don't miss Russia at all. There's nothing there for me."

Being an orphan, she had gotten good at lying.

Her grandmother stand from her armchair and journeys to where she is sitting across the room. She stands above her, looking at her with kindly eyes. "Just because you love a place doesn't mean it's home. And just because you love someone, me, doesn't mean your home isn't with another person. You are still missing someone, Anya."

Anya laughs, a bitter, humorless thing. "He's not worth it, Grandmama, you don't even know..."

"I think you'll come to find that I know more about your friend more than even you. Tell me, did you ever recognize his face? He used to work at the palace. He was the servant boy who opened the servant's door for us the night of the revolution."

Slowly, gradually, the images come back to her, and she is indeed startled when she sees his face, younger and softer and not nearly as sad. She remembers him, recognizes him.

"Oh." Her grandmother smiles again, but it's not patronizing, and she allows her to sit down and embrace her, "It still doesn't change anything," Anya whispers, "He's still a jerk, he still turned out to be a conman. All he cared about was getting out of St. Petersburg and getting rich." She says the words half-heartedly.

"Then isn't strange he never took the money, and if I'm not mistaken, left Paris?"

Then there is silence, only broken by Anya's heavy breathing as she tries to make sense of it all. Being a orphan, she's never gotten good at making sense of anything.

After a long pause, Anya finally utters, "What?" her voice trembling.

Her grandmother withdraws from the hug. She lifts a hand, gently caresses the side of her granddaughter's face. "You are beautiful, Anastasia, and clever enough to fool even yourself. Just think about you really want. Whatever you decide, I will always be here for you." With that, the Dowager quietly stands up and leaves the room.

0000

"Your highness, we found a note for you."

Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovna reaches out one wrinkled hand to take the piece of letter-paper from her servant. She thanks him serenely, and turns her gazes to the note that had been hastily scrawled in a messy hand. The ink is smudged, and her little Anastasia still pens in her _s_'s in the most peculiar way.

_Dear Grandmama,_

_Wish me luck! With Vlad's help, I am off to search for Dimitri. I want to thank you for everything you've done for me, and I will always love you. However, you were right. I miss him. Just try not to be so patronizing next time I'm acting like a total idiot._

_With love,_

_Your Anastasia_

_P.S. Don't call me Anya. It sounds strange when you say it._

0000

She finds him within a week. It wasn't hard at all, actually. St. Petersburg was, naturally, the first place she looked, and naturally, that's exactly where he was. Once she gets there, though, it's even easier to find where he is. St. Petersburg could never keep the secrets and rumors spreading all around its streets. She only had to talk to one elderly woman, who told her to go to the old palace. She feels rather stupid after she learns that. Why hadn't she tried the palace in the first place? But wait, no. She knows exactly why. She had already assumed Dimitri had moved on, severing all connections between them, and naturally, that would include the palace. It's...interesting he's still conducting his business there.

She may be blushing, but it also may be the cold.

She remembers the way to the palace from before. The hole she made in the planks is still there, and her boots make the same marks in the snow they did the first time. It's almost as if nothing has changed on the surface.

Anya knows better.

This time when she reaches the stairwell, sees the cathedral ceiling and all of the steps to come spiraling above her, she isn't awed by the aged, dusty beauty of it all. The sight of her old home just makes her sad, so she thinks she'll try to get all this unpleasantness over with as soon as possible. Skip the sad parts, she thinks. So she yells, hollers, shouts at the top of her lungs:

"_Hello?_"

Silence. Silence, except for a very, very faint sound of a Dimitri-sized object falling to the floor in shock. She smirks, imagining his expression. "_Hello?_" she shouts again, "_Dimitri? Are you there?_" She's done enough walking for him, and decides to just wait for him here. So she slides down to the floor, and leans against the banister as she sits.

Soon enough, she hears the unmistakable _thump thump_ of his shoes on the carpet, and then he's there, right on the staircase only ten or so feet above her.

She grins at him, gleeful like a Cheshire Cat.

He looks as if he's about to fall over.

He gets over himself quickly enough, though, and beats her to speaking. "Anya, what are you _doing_ here?" He leaps the rest of the way down the staircase, until he's in front of her. She barely has chance to see him in the full before he pulls her to him in a bone-crushing hug. "Oh, _Anya_." She can't help smile at the way he says her name. He says it like he's missed her.

She pulls away, and though she is positively furious at him, she can't stop smiling. "What the _hell _did you think you were doing?" Her tone is like acid, and the fact that she _is _smiling creates a rather disconcerting image, and Dimitri has a hard time deciding whether to be worried or happy or creeped out.

"Um," he says.

"No! Let me talk for once, okay? Because we're not going to get anywhere unless I just tell you all of this right now. So, again: what the hell did you think you were doing?"

He's at a loss for words. But it's okay, because she's obviously not done.

"I mean, seriously, but what kind of guy are you? You go and pull this selfless act, but forget to tell the girl about it so she doesn't keep thinking you're really just a bastard and is all confused on why she has a crush on a bastard. You really are just complete shit at this romantic stuff, aren't you?"

He can't help but chuckle, and is about to make his own joke about his comically lack of social skills in this area, but she's still not done.

"You just had so many chances to redeem yourself, to explain that everything had changed and that you're an idiot and that you saved me and my Grandmama and that you didn't take the money. But you didn't. And the thing on the boat, while we dancing, you leaned in and then you didn't. You ran away. And then you ran away again after we talked on the staircase. But you're wrong. You're just _wrong, _Dimitri!" By the end she's become angry with him all over again, and can't help but push him like she used to, her hands flat against his chest.

He's startled, but his expression soon darkens once he's registered her anger in her eyes. "If you came here just to blame me, then you've got another thing coming," he says bitterly, and is turning away when she stops him with a hand on his arm.

"No, you idiot! I'm trying to tell you I love you!"

His eyes widen and his mouth goes a bit slack. He's speechless, truly speechless, but then the moment is gone. "You have the strangest way of saying it."

She laughs, and he does too. They smile at each other, and there's that happiness again, that simple joy bubbling deep within him.

"It's just," she says, looking away. "It's just that you think you don't deserve me. That you don't deserve anyone. You think you're not someone who deserves to love. And you're wrong, Dimitri. You're just..._so wrong._"

He takes her hand, because he wants to. He smiles when she doesn't mind, doesn't eye suspiciously. "Anya, I was told all my life that I didn't deserve to be with you, that I didn't deserve to even talk to you, to even see you. And yeah, I know, all of it was bull. But then I grew up, Anya. Then I _did _do terrible things. Things that _did_ made me unworthy. I used your name, the girl I supposedly loved, in a scam to fool a innocent girl and a poor old woman to get me rich." His voice has turned, now as cool and bitter as steel. "How is that honorable? How is that good? How is that _worthy_ of someone like you?" His hands slips away from hers as he pulls away, again, and she might just think she's gotten used to the sensation. "You should go, Anya. You don't belong here."

She has to resist rolling her eyes, wary of ruining the drama of it all, but _honestly_. Men were such idiots.

She reaches out to grasp his hand, tries to let him now in that single gesture all the things she can never quite put into words. "If I don't belong here, then why _am_ I here? If I'm just some Duchess living in mansions and palaces and townhouses in France, then why am I standing in a deserted building full of nothing but dust?" He looks at her, wonders at her smile. "It's because of you. And-" she chuckles, a tad self-conscious, "I don't when it started being about you, not about finding out who I am, or finding my family, or Paris. But...somehow...something changed...and then I started...it started being all about you. Just for you. Because..."

By this point she's forgotten what her original point _was_, and finds herself quite stranded with him but without the words. She bits her lip, and wonders if anything will ever make any sense.

"If you don't deserve to be loved, if you're just the worthless scum of the Earth, then why am I here?"

She's staring at him with determination in her eyes, and something else. Something he's just noticed, but is slowly realizing has been there for a while, returning to him like a forgotten memory. Something warm, something calming, something that he thought only existed in fairy tales. He smiles, squeezes her palm.

"I was always shit at winning arguments with you," he jokes, and she lets out a relieved laugh. He moves closer, letting go of her hand as his arms wrap around her slender form in a hug. "I missed you," he mutters into her hair.

She shifts against him, momentarily retracting from his embrace to look him in the eye. "Love you," she whispers, and presses her lips to his.

It almost feels weird not to be interrupted.

0000

Later, when they are sitting on the train, hands entwined, he bumps her shoulder slightly, like he used to.

"How do you feel about Italy?" he asks her, looking down at her with the widest smile she's ever seen on him.

Being with him, she's learned it's best to always take his hand and jump in feet first.

"Sounds fantastic," she says, grinning, feeling more like a princess than ever. 


End file.
